GOOD RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 5
Running head: GOOD RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
Good Research Questions and Research Objectives.
Student’s Name
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Date of Submission
Good research questions and objectives.
Characteristics
Research objectives and questions should be concise and clear. While researches are conducted, the clarity of the study is the most crucial component of research work. The researcher is entitled to coming up with objectives that are clear from which the research questions can be developed. The research objectives need to be easy to understand, and they should not have any unclear antecedents while crafting them. Failure to have the clarity results to deviation from the objectives which in return results to a diversion from the main topic which the researcher intended to explore. For example, a research objective like ‘to establish the relationship between demand for hotel rooms and the hotel room prices in California’ does not leave any reader with a question in mind that has not been resolved as it is clearly stated and precise.
The research objectives and questions should be complete. Completeness in this context means that there is no ambiguity as any information that a target audience may be seeking can be derived from the objectives enabling the audience to know whether the study is relevant to the field he or she is exploring. When the research objectives are complete, they also help the researcher in gaining control of the scope of the study since they give a sense of direction as to the study population that the researcher should be incorporated in the study. For example, a research objective stating ‘to examine the effect of price increment on the hotel rooms demand in selected hotels in California’, the research objective seems complete. This is because it defines what variables are to be involved in the research as well as the population to the study and therefore, the researcher has a guide on the areas that he or she should be focusing while carrying out the survey.
The research objectives should be specific. The research objectives should give room to answer the questions regarding the study under scrutiny so that they should answer the questions how, what, where and when. It is only after formulating good objectives that the researcher will be able to solve the above issues since the study will focus on one particular area and explore every aspect of that area. For example, to examine the effect of price increment on the hotel rooms demand in selected hotels in California. In such an objective, the questions how price increment affects the demand for hotel rooms, what makes the demand to decrease, increase or remain constant in California will be examined and be answered after the collection of data and its analysis to give an output that helps in concluding.
Research objectives should be realistic and achievable which can be measured against the period available for the study to be carried out. A college graduate who has three months to carry out a research and submit it as a requirement for the attaining his or her degree cannot have research that covers a vast scope which he or she knows that the time allocated will not permit data collection. An objective stating ‘to examine the effect of price increment on the hotel rooms demands in Europe’ may not be realistic as the time for collecting data across the continent may not be available.
Importance
Both the research objectives and questions aid in identifying the kind of study an individual will carry out as it guides the researcher to know the dependent and independent variables that will help in achieving the stated objective. The researcher will, therefore, be able to identify whether qualitative or quantitative research will be the most suitable for his or her study.
Well-formulated research questions and research objectives act as the basis of a viable study since they serve as pillars to the study topic. A researcher may be having an excellent topic but fail to craft objectives and research questions that support the title of the study. In such a case, it may render such a survey as not viable since the research that will be conducted heavily relies on the research questions and the objectives of the study throughout the body of the research work.
Research objectives and research questions help in controlling the scope of the research work where the researcher will try and stick to the objectives that he or she came up with at the beginning of the study. It is the objectives and the questions in research that define the boundaries of an investigation and help in restraining the extent to which a researcher reaches when carrying out a survey.
They both act to restrain the wastage of resources during the study period which includes money, time and researcher’s energy. Since research objectives and research questions make the researcher not to deviate from the main topic, then time is saved that could have been used to explore a broader scope, money used to obtain the data and energy used by the researcher in the process of fetching data.
Research is carried out to add to the existing knowledge and therefore, any study that has been done will have a target audience who will be using the study to gain knowledge. The target audiences do not necessarily need to read the whole piece of research to know whether that was the area that they wanted to read. By a look at the objectives of the study, target audiences can determine whether the study is of benefit to them.
References
Bridges, J. F., Hauber, A. B., Marshall, D., Lloyd, A., Prosser, L. A., Regier, D. A., … & Mauskopf, J. (2011). Conjoint analysis applications in health—a checklist: a report of the ISPOR Good Research Practices for Conjoint Analysis Task Force. Value in health, 14(4), 403-413.
Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E., & Hyun, H. H. (2011). How to design and evaluate research in education. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
Kumar, R. (2019). Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications Limited.
Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods. Cengage Learning.